


Measure Twice

by wyvernwood



Series: Mikash and Zuran [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Blow Jobs, Experienced/Inexperienced, M/M, Reunion Sex, SmutSwap treat, exes getting back together sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 17:36:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18287039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernwood/pseuds/wyvernwood
Summary: or, An Old FriendZuran has worked as a courtesan in the Kolvan Lodge for several years. He prides himself on his expertise, and on keeping a regular clientele eager to come back for more. A man from his past shows up -- and changes everything. Feelings he'd buried and forgotten rise to haunt him, and start him on an unexpected path.





	Measure Twice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bagel_fish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bagel_fish/gifts).



_In which pleasure is put before business, and after everything, those who waited, come._

"Measure twice and cut once." _A carpenter's proverb_

The client sat on his heels on a cushion, his cock full, the head dark and leaking. Zuran ran his fingers lightly through the client's short curls. "You have done so well," he crooned. "You've earned your release." 

But though he was sure the strain in every muscle of the client's body showed how close he was to climax, Zuran realized he had misread something when the client shook his head, ducking away from Zuran's stroke. "No, I regret, I didn't earn it," he said in a pleading tone. "I will come back to you tomorrow and try again, please, I don't yet deserve…" 

Zuran didn't like the way this was going for more than one reason. He didn't have the energy to have this client back tomorrow, the client couldn't reasonably afford daily trysts, and he didn't allow clients to change the terms of a tryst while they were supposedly in the middle of things.

"I did so want to see your face when you came, Teffan," Zuran said softly, leaning to almost whisper the words into the client's ear. "But you begged so sweetly to wait, I suppose I should grant you what you asked for." With the last two words his voice was harsher, and he wrapped his fingers into the client's hair, pulling his head back until their eyes met. "There is no time for us to meet tomorrow. You should see to yourself at this same hour, and tell me about it at our next tryst. Tell me how you struggled to keep your hands off your cock for a whole day. How you felt denying me the chance to watch. I'll look forward to it." 

Zuran wanted nothing more than to get to sleep. It had been a long work shift for him, and it was late. He usually had a light late supper and a nightcap before going to sleep, but the last few clients had exhausted his patience even more than usual. It was probably his own fault, he thought; he hadn't felt fully in control since that moment, earlier that evening, when he'd heard Mikash's voice.

He helped his client dress, giving him caresses as he buttoned his shirt, and praising how good Teffan looked as he buckled the man's sword belt on. Teffan was effusive but edgy, primarily because he hadn't accepted the release Zuran had expected him to want at the end of the tryst. It was a risky time. A client who was unsatisfied, even if at the client's own request, was not nearly as tractable as one who'd just come down from a wave of pleasure from Zuran's attentions. He threw on a fine silk robe and opened the curtains of his alcove to walk the client out.

Malga, Teffan's sister, had a frown like the tension before a storm on her usually sweet face. She did not have a tryst today, and Zuran was shocked to see her at the lodge. 

She wrapped her bare arms around herself as if she were cold, although the lodge's hearthfire kept it warm enough to make that unlikely. "It's true, then," she said, her voice rough as it would be if she'd been yelling or crying. "How could you, Teffan?" 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Teffan said, darting his eyes between Zuran and his sister. "I had a drink or two. What's so terrible?"

"That's not all you've done," she said with finality. "Don't lie to me on top of everything else."

Teffan's temper, as Zuran had feared, flared up. He turned on Zuran. "What did you tell her? How could you?" He sounded like his sister, using the same words to accuse. Malga gasped as Teffan pulled his sword and tilted it toward Zuran. "Draw your weapon and face me or I'll cut you down." It was a complete shift from his pleading of scarce minutes ago. 

Zuran nearly panicked. He didn't have a weapon on him, and wouldn't have -- he'd sworn an oath against it a decade ago, and never broken it. Teffan probably knew, but had forgotten in the moment. He also knew and might have forgotten that Zuran had been a knight before he was a courtesan, and would be able to disarm him easily or kill him equally easily, if he had been willing to pick up a sword and do it. He tried to defuse the situation as best he could with words. "Now, Teffan, what is it you think I've done to --" but was interrupted before he got anywhere with that approach. 

A blade flashed lightning-fast and knocked the sword out of Teffan's hand, and then the man wielding the lightning was between Zuran and his erstwhile client. 

Teffan was taken aback, first by how fast and easily he'd been disarmed, second by the sight of the sigil on the tunic of the man who'd done the disarming. It was the Queen's, marking the man as one of her knights errant, authorized to enforce the law wherever he chose to go. 

Mikash was one man Zuran had never expected to see again. They'd been recruits together in the Queensguard, trained together, become lovers while stationed at the garrison in Daros, and then prisoners together when it was overrun. After their capture and what had happened then, once released Zuran had resigned his post and sworn off violence, and in the years gone by he'd found himself a comfortable living as a courtesan. His skills were not the most common, and in demand; he had a specialty clientele. The one regret he had was how things had ended between him and Mikash. 

"I don't know what you think he's done, Miss, but this man has no reason to blame me for telling it to you. We both know I haven't told you anything about him," Zuran said. His voice trembled, and he couldn't keep it steady; not because he was lying, or afraid of Teffan, but because Mikash was here and he had no idea what to do with that fact. Everything seemed unreal; his real life with frustrating clients couldn't be real in Mikash's presence, and Mikash couldn't be real in the present day at all. 

"What he's done! Spent money we didn't have on pleasures he shouldn't pursue, I'd think." The woman's lip trembled, and a few tears ran down her cheeks. Though she wasn't quite crying, she was close. 

"If your husband has been--" Mikash began. Zuran felt like he would start shaking any moment, just hearing that once-familiar voice.

"My brother," Malga interrupted. "And he has been. I found where he changed the books to hide the money he took for it."

"Very well." Mikash turned and looked at Teffan, speaking to him while handing him back his sword. "Take this, take your sister, go home and explain to her about the money. If you draw your sword or threaten the employees here again, you'll go before the magistrate."

Teffan, looking still belligerent but somewhat abashed, put his sword in its scabbard and drew Malga away, talking to her in a low voice. 

"Thank you. Mikash." Zuran swallowed. 

The look Mikash gave him revealed to Zuran that he hadn't recognized him until this moment. It was so raw that Zuran managed to regain some of his own self-control and composure, because Mikash looked as astonished to see him as he'd been to see Mikash. "Zuh. Zuran. You're… you?"

"I'm me, as ever." Zuran felt a wild bubble of energy fill him. "Come, sit in my alcove, let me get you a drink and thank you for your help, good knight." Like a story. It still didn't feel real, but he had a line on how to handle things. He took Mikash's hand, caught the eye of one of the servers, and winked at her as he led Mikash to the curtained area. 

They'd tidied it up a little since he'd brought Teffan out, which was usual and what he'd expected. Though it would've been funny if they hadn't, he thought wildly. The cushions were arranged around the low table for comfortable seating or lounging, as padded stools and a bench were around the higher table. Zuran seated Mikash on the bench and then sat down next to him. "Your alcove?" Mikash asked.

"I've worked at this lodge as a courtesan for four years now," Zuran said. 

"You've… I see." Mikash turned as the server came in with a bottle of wine and a stack of clean cups. She set the wine and cups down, uncorked the wine and left again, a smooth and practiced task that took her scant seconds to accomplish. She winked at Zuran on her way out, and drew the curtains closed behind her.

Zuran poured the wine into a cup for Mikash, set the cup in front of the knight, then poured another for himself. "To old friends meeting again," he said softly, and held his cup up toward Mikash for a toast. 

"Is that what we were? Friends?" Mikash looked sidelong at Zuran. 

"It's one thing we were," Zuran said. "The first thing." He leaned close, holding Mikash's eyes in his, slowly closing the distance until it would take only the tiniest of shifts for their lips to meet.

Mikash made that shift, kissed Zuran, at first lightly, then deeper. Zuran's head swam. Familiar, but changed; out of practice, but remembering fast. Blinks of memories tried to catch his attention, but the kiss occupied all Zuran's attention.

Until it ended. He drew back and swept his eyes up and down Mikash's body. Armor and a tunic over it; likely padding underneath. Zurian wanted it all off. This could be real if he could get Mikash naked, and maybe then the shock could fade. He knew how to remove clothing while putting a client at ease; it was so habitual it was almost instinct. 

Good thing too, because touching Mikash was distracting beyond what Zuran had thought possible. He would have sworn, the previous day, that sex was sometimes fun, sometimes challenging and, unfortunately, often boring, but it was his work and he took pride in doing it well. Sworn too that he could no longer be overcome with lust, with longing, with need, not like this. How wrong the Zuran of yesterday had been. 

He had Mikash's armor off him and was crouched between his legs, removing the padding on his legs and around his waist. Once he'd set it aside, it was obvious he wasn't the only one unbearably aroused.

Zuran took Mikash's erection in hand, enjoying the feel of the velvety skin of it, the shock of familiarity of the shape and angle of Mikash's hard cock. Touching it without lubricant was warmer and less like being with a client; Zuran felt completely distracted and not at all in the mental space he was in while working. Instead he was thrown back to how he'd felt as a young man with his lover, how they had been together when hardly more than youths in the guard. He knew, sensing, remembering, that Mikash was already on the verge of a too-fast, disappointingly un-climactic climax. This problem with premature ejaculation had led the Zuran of a decade ago to a habit of making his lover come quickly and then waiting out the short time until he could make Mikash hard again. 

That wouldn't suit the Zuran of tonight. For one thing, Mikash was older and his refractory period would be commensurately longer. For another, he had the advantage of already having Mikash in hand, and he didn't know if his old lover would wait around through a disappointment for a resurgence. Third and most significantly, Zuran now had an arsenal of techniques for delaying a partner's orgasm. Time to pull himself together and be in the present moment, his present self, with the feelings of that younger man but the skills of the expert courtesan of today.

With his thumb and forefinger, he pinched just the spot to prevent anything going too quickly. He pulled out a band made for this task and fastened it around Mikash's cock, not too loose, not too tight. That would keep everything going long enough for real satisfaction. He timed the strokes of his lips and fingers quicker, then built in pauses to draw out the sensation, keep it from overwhelming as he stopped and started, over and over.

Mikash was breathing heavily and his muscles were tenser than was comfortable. Zuran wanted him to relax, to let the feeling build up, to let Zuran show him an amazing time. He realized he was too invested in this; that a part of him was convinced this was the only chance he'd ever have to somehow win Mikash back, after so long. His lips slid down around Mikash's cock to the band, his fingers worked below that, stroking Mikash's balls and up behind them between his legs, and his tongue worked around the tip of Mikash's cock the way he remembered Mikash particularly liked. 

At this point, he expected Mikash to touch him. When clients got this excited, they'd put their hands on his shoulders, or head, or reach for him somehow, except the ones who preferred to be restrained. Those might tug the restraints at this juncture. And Mikash, before, would have been stroking Zuran's hair, or running his toes along Zuran's side trying to tickle him. 

Mikash now did none of those things. The knight was very still, except the involuntary movements of his body in reaction to the pleasure he clearly was feeling. 

Zuran had a pang of insecurity. He should know what to do. But for a moment, everything felt wrong, and his experience and his memory both deserted him for a blank instant of panic that he was making the worst mistake of the last ten years and he would never be able to fix it. _No,_ he thought sharply, cutting off that train of thought as he'd taught himself to do with any such self-destructive inclination, _focus._

When did a man react as Mikash was reacting now? He'd seen it often enough before. When he desperately wants to be pleasing, and isn't sure he is. Zuran, having seen the situation often, recognized it once he allowed himself to. He had enough clients who needed him to say that he found them arousing -- who had to be praised and reassured -- that he was very good at doing so convincingly. Frustrating that this situation in which he felt it so intensely was exactly when he wasn't making it clear enough. Zuran didn't want to take his mouth off Mikash's cock long enough to say how much this meant to him; he didn't know if he could find the right words, either. Not when it was real.

Unable to tell him, Zuran resolved to show him. He'd held the climax off long enough with the band that it would be good, very good. Unfastening the band with deft fingers, Zuran took the knight's cock deeper into his mouth, sucking around it tightly with that pressure that drove men wild, that had some of them bucking against him and others pleading for permission for release. Mikash did neither of these things. He held himself very still, trembling, passionate, but also clearly stymied by some inner need from acting on his desires. It wasn't that Zuran didn't care. He cared very much. It was that he was serving, at this moment, his own needs more than Mikash's, something he never let himself do, that he never actually wanted to do with clients anyway. He stroked Mikash's balls and squeezed them and sucked and heard Mikash cry his name, the first sound he'd made other than heavy breathing, felt the rush of sticky heat down his throat as Mikash came.

Zuran let Mikash's slackening cock slide out of his mouth, and nuzzled against his stomach, rubbing his cheek on the few coarse hairs that crept upward toward the knight's navel. "Like coming home," he breathed against the angle of the Mikash's ribcage. Then he slid onto the seat next to his lover and their arms were around each other again, Mikash resting his forehead against the side of Zuran's neck. 

"This isn't a home," Mikash answered, barely above a whisper. "This is … I had fantasies where almost exactly this happened, you know. That our paths would cross by fortune somewhere, and you would somehow be in trouble so that I could heroically save you. Then you would dramatically forgive me and fall into my arms. But I didn't want it to be like this… like… you rewarded me like a job, paid me for my service with yours… Zuran," his voice broke on the name. 

Zuran's first reaction was to the last part, and that reaction was _no._ It slipped onto his tongue without conscious intent. "No!" He managed not to shout it, but the word was sharp. "No," he repeated with more calm, more shape to his tone, "that isn't what this was, just now. I missed you. I wanted you." Then in a pause to try to find the right words, his mind replayed what Mikash had actually said. "You thought I would forgive you? What was there for me to forgive you for?" Zuran had thought it was entirely the other way around.

Mikash had been the one who stayed loyal to the Queen. Zuran had been the one who was weak, who gave in to their captors. Mikash had been disappointed, perhaps disgusted that his lover was a traitor, though in the time apart he had perhaps forgiven, remembering how sick Zuran had been at the time. 

"Then if you have forgiven me, come with me." Mikash hurriedly pulled on his clothing and armor. It looked scandalously disarrayed, and Zuran helped him to get himself looking more respectable before he dressed himself, ensuring Mikash wouldn't open the curtains until they both were fully dressed.

Zuran wasn't sure if it was self-indulgence, or to convince Mikash he wasn't holding a grudge -- for what, he still had no idea -- or if it was that he couldn't face dealing with another client tonight after the fiasco with Teffen, but he told the concierge he was feeling shaky from Teffen's attack, and the knight errant would be seeing him home. 

They went to Mikash's place, however. Mikash insisted, and Zuran wanted to see where he was living. It was a set of rooms with its own door in a row all alike at the edge of the Queensguard fields, moderately well-kept housing for knights errant who were visiting the city. 

"This isn't home either," Zuran pointed out. "It's your workplace instead of mine." He sat in a comfortable upholstered chair. There was another just like it angled adjacent, and between the chairs a small square table. 

Mikash brought him a cup and a decanter of fruit juice, setting the decanter on the table and sitting in the other chair. "It's almost the same, but I don't have wine," he said with a smile. Now that he was on his own territory, the knight seemed to have regained some of his composure. "Since you're here, I almost believe you really have forgiven me." 

Zuran laughed, nervous but relieved at the same time. "You still haven't told me what there was to forgive you _for_." 

"You were sick, and I left you, alone, to our enemies' negligent care. To do -- what they did to you. I … Zuran, I never forgave myself, how could I hope you would forgive me?" Mikash sighed. 

"I won't forgive you, because you gave me no offense." Zuran's mouth quirked into a smile, which quickly faded as he realized Mikash didn't even know what he'd done. It wasn't like he'd wanted to tell him; but he had thought someone would. Apparently not. "But I'm not sure you'll forgive me, if it comes down to that. Though you probably will. At least I got my chance to be with you again before you knew." 

"Knew what?" Mikash looked confused. 

Zuran thought the confusion was adorable, but he steeled himself to clear it up. "While I was sick, and you were being questioned and refusing to betray the Queen for any reason, I wasn't so strong. I told them everything they wanted to know." He paused, getting it out before he lost his nerve. "I even, after I recovered, spied for them and found out more." 

The confusion redoubling in his expression, Mikash sat up straighter, put his hand on Zuran's shoulder and looked into his eyes directly. "What? I knew that. That's what I meant. They did that to you, and I … let them."

Now Zuran was confused too. "You _let_ them? We were both their prisoners." He waved his hand in exasperated incomprehension. 

"Because of that, yes. If I hadn't been there… if they hadn't threatened me, they never could have made you do those things." Mikash looked sad, and something else: a deep guilt that had been hidden under layers of attempted virtue to assuage it. 

"That doesn't make it your fault." Zuran sat back in the comfortable chair, reaching for Mikash's hand. He gave it what he meant to be a comforting squeeze.

Mikash slipped out of his chair and to the ground, kneeling in front of Zuran in another mirror of how it had been in Zuran's alcove. Zuran wondered if Mikash would start removing his clothes now. It was almost funny to contemplate, though he did find it arousing. He had few clients who wanted to give him blow jobs. It had been a while. "It does make it my fault," he said, squeezing Zuran's hand. "And I need to …" his voice trailed off. Maybe he wasn't sure what he was going to say, Zuran guessed. But he waited, to see if Mikash would finish.

Instead, Mikash began to unfasten Zuran's trousers. That seemed like a wholly satisfactory conclusion, to Zuran.

**Author's Note:**

> Part I of a series of smut swap stories written for the pairing _Knight Errant/Their Old Friend Who Is Now A Courtesan_ and various requested freeforms.
> 
> Part II: _[Cut Once, or A Knight Errant](/works/18287105)_ \- Tells from Mikash's viewpoint approximately the same events as _Measure Twice._  
>  Part III: _[Being Yourself, On Purpose](/works/18287246)_ \- What happens after _Measure Twice_ and _Cut Once_
> 
> Thank you to asuralucier for beta-reading and for feedback that helped me make these stories better. I'm stubborn and didn't make every suggested change 😄


End file.
